Analysis of 10 freshly collected clinical HCC samples revealed that ZNF687 mRNA expression was positively correlated with the mRNA expression of BMI1 (r=0.90, P<0.01), NANOG (r=0.79, P<0.01) and OCT4 (r=0.86, P<0.05) (Figures 8a and b). Here, NANOG is linked to hepatocellular carcinoma.